Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg grilled during landmark social media addiction trial

LOS ANGELES (CN) — Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared in a Downtown LA courtroom on Wednesday to testify as an adverse witness in the first-of-its-kind civil trial over the mental health effects of social media on teenagers.

The Facebook founder, one of the five richest people in the world, was largely on the defensive, insisting that his company is focused not on keeping its users glued to their screens but on “delivering something with value” to the world.

“We’re building this thing to be a good thing that has value in people’s lives,” said Zuckerberg. “I want people to have a good experience with it.”

He did, however, admit that the amount time people spend on his apps is, to a certain extent, a measure of success.

“If you make your product better, then people will use it more,” he said, glancing over at the jury.

His testimony was part of the first bellwether trial in a bundle of more than 1,600 lawsuits filed against four social media companies — Meta, Google (which owns YouTube), Snap and TikTok — by parents who say their children became addicted to the platforms, causing or exacerbating their depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia. The plaintiff in this trial is Kaley GM, a now-20-year-old woman whose last name is being withheld. She has not been present in court for most of the proceedings but was sitting in the front row Wednesday morning to watch Zuckerberg testify. Both TikTok and Snapchat have reached confidential settlements with Kaley GM, but Instagram and YouTube remain as defendants.

The outcome of the LA Superior Court trial could help the army of lawyers hammer out a global settlement and could even lead to groundbreaking reforms. But the jury will hear little about that; this trial is instead narrowly focused on Kaley. Lawyers for YouTube and Instagram have argued that Kaley GM’s mental health “struggles” were the product of an unhappy childhood, and that social media provided her with a quiet refuge and a creative outlet. Kaley says that what started out as an escape became an addiction and a new source of trauma.

Under hours of grilling by plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier, Zuckerberg repeatedly insisted, as he has before Congress, that “children under the age of 13 are not allowed on Instagram.” But Kaley GM was nine years old when she started using Instagram. And her attorney, Lanier, cited a trove of internal documents and communications discussing the ubiquitous presence of early teens and “tweens” on the popular photo sharing app. One such document, from 2018, stated that 4 million people under the age of 13 had Instagram accounts in 2015, including roughly 30% of all kids ages 10 to 12 in the United States.

“I generally think there are a set of people, who lie about their age in order to use our services,” Zuckerberg told the jury in a wooden tone.

Zuckerberg looked pale and tired, in a dark blue suit and smoke gray tie, and appeared to grow quietly irritated as Lanier pressed him, again and again, on why so many young children are allowed to remain on his app. Zuckerberg explained that age verification was difficult, especially since 12 year olds don’t exactly have drivers’ licenses. He suggested that phone makers, like Apple, might be better suited to do so.

“There’s a distinction between whether someone is allowed to do something and whether they’ve been caught breaking a rule,” he said. “I don’t see why this is so complicated.”

The 41-year-old billionaire was similarly defensive when questioned about whether or not Meta has made it a goal to increase the amount of time users regularly spent on the platform. Lanier showed the court an email sent by Zuckerberg to employees at the end of 2015, in which he stated that one of the things he “hoped to accomplish” over the next three years was to increase the time spent on the app by 12%. Zuckerberg admitted that this may have once been his aim but said he has since shifted the goal toward bringing “value” to users.

Lanier then confronted him with a series of internal documents in which Meta employees reveled in the fact that more people were spending more time on Instagram. In one from 2022, someone at the company cited “milestones” the company hoped to reach every year: 40 minutes of use per daily active user in 2023, 42 minutes in 2024, 44 minutes in 2025, and 46 minutes in 2026. Again, Zuckerberg insisted these weren’t “goals.”

“You don’t give them goals, you give them milestones,” Lanier said, almost mockingly, in his Texas drawl.

“That’s wrong, that’s not what I’m saying,” Zuckerberg answered flatly. “You’re mischaracterizing the document and what I said.”

The plaintiff’s attorney also brought up a 2022 “self-review” authored by Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, who testified last week. In the review, Mosseri touted his own job performance and noted that his primary goal was to “ensure the app remains culturally relevant as measured by session time and sharing, particularly with teens.”

“The head of Instagram has a goal for Instagram that seems to be trying to increase the amount of time people spend on Instagram,” Lanier said.

“We try to increase the value of our services,” Zuckerberg responded. “But we’re also trying to measure our progress against competitors, like TikTok. Looking at the time people spend on our apps is often the best proxy. That’s different from giving our team the goal of trying to increase time.”

Zuckerberg was also questioned about Instagram’s “beauty filters,” some of which can be used to alter photographs in ways that mimic the effects of plastic surgery. The filters are among the most controversial aspect of Instagram — many say that they encourage insecurity and body dysmorphia amongst teenage girls. Though the tech company had, at one time, briefly banned the filters, which are created by users, they are currently allowed, although they are not recommended by Instagram and can only be found by searching for them.

Lanier asked Zuckerberg why he had ignored the advice of some “18 experts” that the filters were causing harm to teens. Zuckerberg said that he’d listened to those experts, but also to experts on “free expression” and “what the community was telling us.”

“It felt like it was going too far to not allow them,” Zuckerberg said. “I think that’s quite a reasonable balance.” He later added, under questioning by Meta’s own attorney, Paul Schmidt: “These aren’t massively popular features. I think I cared more about the expression point on principle.”

The social media trial continues on Thursday with the testimony of a number of former Meta employees, some of whom have been described as “whistleblowers.” The trial is expected to last until the middle of March.

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